


Bird's Eye View

by Ilthit



Category: Stardust (2007)
Genre: Gen, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Yuletide 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: A princess of Stormhold is never truly a slave.





	Bird's Eye View

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenRoses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenRoses/gifts).



> No reference to the book made. It has been a very long time since I read it.

“My apologies for the accommodations, Your Highness,” said Sal, laughing, her teeth even yellower in the candlelight. “Not what you’re used to, eh? I’m afraid I sold my gilded cage at the last market. Sticks will have to do.” She poked the cage, sending it rocking. The bird inside stumbled and then righted herself, flaying her wings awkwardly like a chick learning to fly.  
  
“I wonder how long I’ll have to work to break you in. Never had a princess for a servant girl before.” The thought seemed to cheer the witch up, and she tittered to herself as she turned away, tying up her possessions to the caravan's walls and in her numerous bolted boxes to get ready for a bumpy road. Una’s tiny, fast-beating bird’s heart sank within her. Her guard would ride this stretch of land from one end to the other for days, but they’d be more likely to roast a bird for lunch than rescue one. She struck her wings against the wooden bars of her prison, twittering more in despair than anger. Witches. What was all her rank and might against a witch?  
  
Sal released her back into her original form that evening, well away from the market where the princess had allowed herself to be led away with the promise of magical flowers. Her knees buckled and pitched her into the ground, her bare arms shivering on the cool grass, her breath catching and heaving. With this weakness and nausea rushing through her, she could not have attempted to run, even if she hadn't been shackled.

The silver chain that rested against her ankle was cool and light as air, but she remembered very well how she had pulled on it to no avail. Her ankle still showed the marks where it had sliced her through the straps of her sandals.   
  
“It takes a little getting used to at first,” Sal commented, turning a squirrel on her spit. “I don’t expect to get a lot of use out of you for the first couple of weeks until your stomach settles. Right then. Listen carefully, slave. These will be your duties...” Una listened through the buzzing in her ears at a litany of scullery maid work. She hadn’t the slightest clue how to even begin scouring a pot.  
  
-  
  
In the castle, she had kept birds.  
  
Peacocks with golden feathers, nightingales decorated with diamonds and emeralds enchanted to be light as air, hummingbirds in brilliant colours to wear like jewels in a cage hanging around her waist in court. There had been servants to clear out their droppings, to feed and water them, and to train them neither to peck nor bite. The princess had only the pleasure of them, while care was left to others.  
  
Perhaps princesses are not so different from witches.  
  
“Such a pleasure and joy you are, Una,” her father had told her on occasion. “A daughter may be a frivolity, but I can afford any luxury I like, can’t I? I’ve earned it.” And he would pet her hair and she would smile her warmest smile, and remind herself her father’s lack of interest in her was what kept her safe. Her brothers were not so lucky. So she curtseyed and weighed herself down with jewels and silks, spoke softly and gave only the advise that was best designed to please and flatter, and learned to read the runes--to know when to involve herself, when to abstain from food and drink, and when to disappear.  
  
-  
  
Weeks passed, then months. Hard, dirty work and boredom followed one another like night follows day, the sun follows the moon, across a sky of stars. The witch’s caravan became Una’s world. Where once she had fallen asleep to the music of night-birds and lutes outside her bedroom window, her nightly concert now was the wet snore of Sal in her cups. Where once she had lain for hours in bed, either with no desire for any pleasure or taking it in a book, her nights now were short and cramped and soon dissolved into another day of work.  
  
The odd thing about hardship is that one gets used to it. The desire to escape did not grow within her because the captivity stretched on to a point beyond bearing, or because humiliation broke her. If captivity and humiliation were enough to reduce her to a despair, she should have given up on life long ago in the court of Stormhold. If anything, it was Sal’s daily jeering that made sure Una never forgot to stop trying.  
  
“Held dragons, that chain has,” Sal would say, and Una would imagine how easily a dragon could claw through whoever tried to yank its chain, if only she came close enough. Or, “I rather fancy we’ll go to your castle one day and you’ll raid your old room for jewels for me,” and Una hoped they would, so her guard could slice the witch into ribbons.  
  
As Una scrubbed the pot, her fingers stinging from the vinegar, scraping off sheets of blackened grease, a plan began to form in her mind.  
  
A princess of Stormhold would be a fool to marry or bear children, unless she had no brothers, father or cousins to murder her infants in their cribs. When Una had realized this, at age eight, she had given up all her dolls. What good was practising something she would never experience? Yet the desire for a child of her own never left her. In the marketplaces she watched with envy over Sal’s table of goods as women passed by with their bellies high or their children in tow, even when those children seemed intent on driving their mothers to an early grave. It was this that turned the idea from an impossible desire into a scheme.

All she needed was to find the right man.  
  
She began to read her runes nightly whenever Sal's back was turned, waiting for the answer she wanted. She pilfered Sal’s herbs to make her own brews, found the necessary ingredients, and lay charms of fertility upon her belly every full moon. Patience became her chief virtue.

-  
   
The rune-stones had been quite clear. It had taken Una some craft to steer Sal in the direction of the market near Wall, when the witch had been hankering to go north. Una recognized him the moment he ambled down the market, staring at everything with his mouth agape. An English boy. No, not a boy—a man.  
  
Her brothers would never find a baby in England.  
  
Sal barked an order and left. Una smoothed down her much-washed and much-mended silk dress, still beautiful after these years, and strolled down to the stall. “See anything you like?”

-

Many, many years passed. Grey streaked her black hair, then crow's feet sprung up in the corners of her eyes, but she shed that blue dress at last and donned greens and gold and white, and the jewel-studded tiara of the king's mother.

"You hands," said Tristan, his voice breaking, as he turned her palms towards him. Even now that they were healed, the scars and burns that littered them had not gone away. They never would, just as her back would never cease to ache again, her youth would never return to her, or her belly bear children again.

"Marks of pride," said Una, and looked up at Yvaine. The two shared a smile. If anyone, the star should understand the value of imperfection.

_~ The End. ~_

 


End file.
